Power Lines: Coast

Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Power Lines: Coast with Cecilia Knapp. She talks to poets from around the UK about their relationships with the sea and the coastal towns and cities where they live.

And Daljit reads from his Poetry Extra Book of the Month – a new, or recently published, poetry collection. The book this month is Gravity Archives by Andrew Motion, a tender contemplation of departure and return.

From a windswept Brighton beach, the poet Cecilia Knapp asks how growing up by the sea has influenced her writing, pulling her back to the shoreline.

Exploring the very different coastal worlds of Shetland, St Ives, Liverpool, Dunbar and Brighton, Cecilia and her fellow poets discuss the beauty and boredom of a coastal upbringing and the things that inspire them, from teenage beach parties and the cold of the Atlantic, to dead jellyfish, phosphorescence and the vibrancy of port cities.

Poets:
Ella Frears
Ciarán Hodgers
Hannah Lavery
Roseanne Watt

Produced by Julia Johnson

A Bellow Stories production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2021.